Unicorns, magic, compassion: New children's book by Durham author has it all

Jacqueline K. Ogburn lives a life surrounded by books. In fact, she and her husband bought their 1925 bungalow near downtown Durham because it had four built-in bookcases.

But books also stretch into Ogburn's professional life. She has spent years working in the book publishing industry. Ogburn, who has two daughters, currently edits for Alazar Press, a small publisher in Chapel Hill and, for a decade, worked mostly as a children's book editor in New York.

And, she's not just an editor. She's also an author. Ogburn, who also does communications work for the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, has written 10 pictures books, including "The Bake Shop Ghost," "A Dignity of Dragons" and "The Magic Nesting Doll."

"Animal-lovers will adore this enchanting, compassionate tale," wrote Booklist. "Eric's quiet, genuine, first-person voice tells a realistic story of family love and discovering one's true self, the presence of the unicorn and other magical creatures adding just a touch of whimsy to a story about very real emotions... A sensitive, moving debut," said Kirkus.

I'm reading the book with my older daughter, and we are enjoying this sweet, magical story. I checked in with Ogburn to learn more about her work. Here's a Q&A:

The first manuscript that I sold was an idea that I had had in college, about a little girl from a wealthy family, who is kidnapped and turns the tables on her kidnapper. It is the night of the full moon and she is a werewolf child. I kept trying to write it as a horror story, with little success, mostly because I don’t like horror stories. I told the idea to a fellow editor, and she said that was funny. I wrote the first draft in a couple of days after that.

I am not very prolific for a picture book writer, perhaps because I end up writing the stories that nag me that I can’t forget about until I write them out.

My youngest daughter gave me the idea, when she mentioned, after playing with her stuffed unicorn, that she thought a unicorn would be difficult for a vet to treat because of the horn. The idea of a vet treating magical animals had a lot of possibilities. Unicorns have healing abilities.  Any medical story deals with issues of healing, life and death.

I had also loved horse stories when I was a kid. I decided that the main character should be a boy, because I had not read a story of a unicorn and a boy, even though I had read lots of horse stories about boys.

I also love fantasy, especially stories with contemporary settings where the fantasy characters or rules are in “our” world. There weren’t a lot of those set in rural North Carolina, so I decided to use a setting based on the farm where my mother grew up in a small town outside of Charlotte.

It took me years to write though, because it was the equivalent of going from being great at the 50-yard dash to a marathon. I got stuck a lot and would put it away for several months. But the characters and situations kept popping back into my head, so I would work on it some more. It was a story that wanted me to tell it.

Working at the Center, I saw that there was a lot that an 11-year-old could do that would actually be very helpful. Sick animals need a clean environment, so that means lots of housework – sweeping, moping, fixing food, cleaning cages, washing dishes. A unicorn, like a horse, would need to be groomed as well as having the stall mucked out.

It also helped me see the clinic in my imagination more clearly, to know what kinds of things would need to be in the rooms, on the shelves, where the characters would be working.

That’s where I met Dr. Bobby Schopler, who now works at the Duke Lemur Center. He let me pick his brain about vet stories and read the manuscript and corrected my medical errors.